Author's Note: This scene contains graphic sexual content, some of which might hit an embarrassment squick for some people. For anyone wondering, the book the boys keep referencing is Crush by Richard Siken.

Reckless Chapter Twenty-Five: Bonus SceneBen McCutcheon

You are ruined from the moment you climb into the passenger seat of the Cadillac, and James twists to lean both his elbows on the console between the two of you, putting his face much closer to yours than anticipated. “I finished the book,” he says, though it’s more of an accusation than a statement. “I cannot believe you sprung that on me without telling me how good it would be.” Heat flares in your chest and spreads outward so quickly, you find yourself leaning back on the now closed door to give yourself room to breathe. “It’s my favorite book of all time. If that wasn’t enough to tell you it would be amazing, you’re beyond help,” you say. It takes you another moment to realize, “Wait, no. You can’t have finished it yet. I only gave it to you this morning, and when you left here around five, you said you were going back to your apartment to sleep for a few hours before a full day of classes. You haven’t had time to read it.” He rolls his eyes. “It was sixty-something pages of poetry. I read it while I was waiting for my logic class to start. Anyway, I only meant to read the first poem, but once I realized it was a somewhat connected narrative, I couldn’t very well quit in the middle, could I?” He returns to his own side of the car and reverses smoothly out of the driveway. “You can change the radio to whatever you’d like. The godawful rock station Garen usually puts on is set to number three.” “Whatever you were listening to is fine,” you say. It’s the gracious answer, and something about being in a spotless Cadillac that still has its new car smell makes you want to behave yourself. Unfortunately, when you press the power button, your eardrums are instantly assaulted by some rap song so disgusting that you contemplate throwing yourself right back out of the car and onto the sidewalk. You aren’t a prude by any stretch of the imagination—you’re sure you sacrificed your right to that descriptor sometime between the time Garen dragged you out of study hall so that he could fuck you in the senior stairwell, and the time Stohler made you hold a shopping basket full of bondage porn while she interrogated an unreasonably enthusiastic Luv Boutique clerk about what vibrators provided the best prostate stimulation—but you’re also not a misogynist, and hearing a man with a voice as thick and foul as an oil slick rasping out lyrics about shoving his cock at any unsuspecting woman who stays still for five seconds is enough to make your upper lip curl back in distaste. You flip to the rock station saved to the third button and say, “Nevermind. What you were listening to is definitely not fine.” “I suspected you might react that way,” James says, shooting you a wry smile. “Though, in all fairness, I imagine you’d be hard-pressed to find any Georgia boy who doesn’t listen to at least some hip-hop, given the Atlanta music scene.” “You’re not from Atlanta, though,” you point out. He shrugs. “Less than four hours from there to Savannah. Not much longer than it’d take you to get from New Haven to here or Boston, but I’d wager you still grew up with an opinion on the Yankees versus Red Sox fued. Most people like things that reflect the culture of the area they grew up in.” You couldn’t care less about baseball if your very life depended on it, but every teenager in Connecticut has a vehement preference for one team or the other, and you know you’ve got a Yankees cap somewhere in your closet at home. Rather than admit this, you hitch your shoulders in a shrug and turn to look out the window. It isn’t until James is pulling into the parking lot of a music store just outside the city’s limits that you think to ask, “What kind of budget do you want me to stick to?” He parks the car, frowns at you, and asks, perplexed, “Budget?” “Are you kidding me,” you say flatly. “Yes. A budget. Clearly this is a word you’re unfamiliar with, so allow me to explain. A budget is a magical number that you gives you the power to pay your rent, buy groceries, and make tuition payments, so long as you don’t allow your bullshit spending to go over said number. A budget is the reason that I ride a skateboard to school, instead of wasting all my gas money driving there every day. A budget is the thing that made your parents say ‘no’ all those times you asked for a pony when you were a kid.” James presses his lips together in a thin line, clearly fighting a smile. And then you remember, and you have to tilt your head down, close your eyes, and pinch the bridge of your nose to try to ward off a headache as you amend, “Except that I’m now realizing that your parents actually did buy you a fucking pony. So, fuck the budget, I guess.” “His name is Boxer,” James says, not bothering to hide his grin anymore. You want to brain yourself against the car window, because of course he would name his horse after an Animal Farm character. Of course he would do that, and admit that, and know you would be affected by that. “If you’re ever in Savannah, I’ll take you for a ride.” That last time he spoke to you about the stable in Savannah, you were riding him, and he was telling you how much he wanted to work you over with a riding crop. You tumble gracelessly from the car, slam the door, and start speed-walking towards the music store. You can hear his laughter even before he gets out of the car, and you’ve crossed half the parking lot before he catches up to you, reeling you back with a hand wound into the material of your hoodie. “Alright, slow down. And for your information, I know what a budget is, I just don’t know how you expect me to set one for this,” he says. “I have no idea how much a guitar costs. All I know is that I’m tired of hearing Garen bitch about how he wants an acoustic one, since all he has is an electric. You’re the one who plays every instrument under the goddamn sun—you tell me what a reasonable budget would be.” “Um, I bought my acoustic used, for less than a hundred bucks,” you say, ducking your head so that you can check the time on your phone. You don’t actually care what time it is, nor do you really absorb what the numbers are, but you don’t want to look at him when you’re forced to acknowledge exactly how different your financial situation is from his. “I’m guessing you want something new. And I’m guessing you want something quality.” “Obviously,” he says. “It’s for Garen’s birthday, and he’s… had a hard year. I want something spectacular. If I were aiming for mediocrity, I wouldn’t have bothered to ask for your assistance; I would’ve wandered in and picked something myself.” You shrug. “His electric was maybe twenty-seven hundred.” You’re about to point out that Garen is an ostentatious cow who could’ve found something just as nice for a quarter of that price if he hadn’t been so focused on finding something in his favorite color, but James nods and says, “Alright. Shall we agree that three grand is a reasonable cap for a budget, then?” Dropping three thousand dollars on a single instrument is unfathomable to you. The last time you handled that much money at one time, you were making a payment for your tuition plan; taking that much out of your savings account almost made you sick, even if it was for school. But James doesn’t even blink as he suggests it, and you know you won’t ever have the chance to spend three thousand dollars of someone else’s money in a music store again in your life. Instead of telling him that you could find something much cheaper than that, you clamp down the lurch of guilt in your stomach and promise, “I’ll find something perfect for you to give him.” James waves you ahead of him into the building. The door opens with a buzz that you only vaguely hear over the punk song playing on the sound system. The store is equal parts record store and instrument shop; the center of the room is packed with aisles of browsing bins full of CDs and vinyl. Around the border of the room, the rest of the inventory is separated by instrument type, with the guitars along the back wall. It’s well-stocked, moreso than any of the stores around Lakewood. There are a few people browsing, and two clerks chatting near the register, though they look up when you enter. “Hey,” says the boy, whose nametag identifies him as Daryl. “You guys just looking, or do you need help finding something specific?” “Something specific,” James says. You hadn’t noticed that his hand was still resting between your shoulderblades, but that’s where he pushes you gently forward. “I need an acoustic guitar, but beyond that, I know nothing. This is Ben; he can tell you what we’re looking for better than I can. Feel free to ignore my presence entirely, until the moment comes when you require payment.” You have never been good at making introductions for yourself—you tend to panic, accidentally insult the person you’re speaking to, and generally embarrass yourself to the point of it being literally painful—but James’ words have sufficiently cracked the ice, so all you have to do as he wanders away is step closer to the counter and raise one hand in a wave you instantly wish you could take back. “Hi. Sorry about him. But, uh, yeah, our friend’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, and James—that’s James, the guy I came in with—wants to buy him an acoustic-electric.” Daryl the clerk bobs his head and says, “Alright, cool. C’mon, I’ll show you what we’ve got. Amanda, you cool to stay up here?” The other clerk waves him off, and he lopes around the counter to lead you to the back wall of the shop. “Does your friend already play, or is he a beginner?” “He’s been playing for about seven years. Right now, all he’s got is an electric—you know the Vintage Hot Rod series Fender introduced a couple years ago? He’s got the ‘57 Strat. It’s a great instrument, but I’m pretty sure he considers it a blight upon his soul that he only has one.” “And what about you?” he asks. “Do you play?” Before you can even take a breath, James’ circuit of the store brings him close enough to bump purposefully into you as he answers, “Allegedly. All I’ve been hearing for a year now is ‘Ben plays half a dozen instruments’ this and ‘Ben turned down Juilliard’ that, yet I’ve still never heard him play a single note.” “Well, you’re in luck. Can’t exactly choose the right guitar to buy if he doesn’t try it out first, can he?” Daryl points out. Luckily, the all-out embarrassment of being forced to show off in front of James is stamped out almost immediately. You are provided with a chair to sit in while Daryl brings you various instruments to inspect, but it quickly becomes clear to you that James has overestimated his own capacity for patience; he goes off to explore the store on his own before you’ve even set pick to string on the first one. You work your way through the guitars, asking questions, commenting on things you’ve read, looking up reviews on your phone, playing a few chords to get a feel for each one. By the time you have rejected the fifth one, James has taken to wandering over to ask you questions, then retreating until he has another. “There’s a guitar over there that’s shaped like a soup spoon. Why aren’t you looking at ones like that?” “Because that’s a mandolin,” you say, barely sparing the instrument a glance, “and last time I checked, Garen wasn’t in the Punch Brothers.” “I’m sorry, I don’t—was that a joke? Because those words didn’t mean a damn thing to me.” You stop strumming the guitar, take a calming breath, and look up. “The Punch Brothers are a band. They have a mandolin player. That’s it, dude, that’s the entire joke.” “It doesn’t count as a joke, if it only makes sense to music geeks and hipsters,” James says loftily. You would retort, but he’s already disappearing back into the aisles. You are allowed two minutes of peace before he returns to say, “I saw a sign that said something about an acoustic-electric guitar. What’s the difference between that and a plain acoustic guitar?” “An acoustic-electric guitar is an acoustic guitar that is also electric,” you say flatly. “Don’t give me a smartass answer,” James says, narrowing his eyes at you. “I’m not afraid to hit a child.” You hand off the guitar to Daryl, partly because you know it’s not the right one for Garen, and partly because you are afraid you might try to hit James with it if someone doesn’t remove it from your possession soon. “You realize that I’m older than you, right? You can’t call me a child, it doesn’t make sense. And it’s—alright, here’s your two-minute musical education. When the strings of an acoustic guitar vibrate, the sound they produce is amplified by the guitar body itself. When the strings of an electric guitar vibrate, the sound they produce has to go through the pick-up system—which is electrical—and into the amplifier. Otherwise, it sounds like shit. An acoustic-electric is an acoustic guitar, but it has the pick-up system in it, which means you can plug it into an amp for more sound. Got it?” “Yes, but good Lord, stop talking,” James moans. “I wouldn’t have asked, if I’d known your answer would be so unbearably boring.” “You’re the dumbass who asked me a question you didn’t actually care about the answer to,” you retort. “Now go away.” He huffs and stomps off again. Daryl raises his eyebrows and mutters, “I can see why he needed a friend’s help to pick out an instrument. Doesn’t know a thing about music, does he?” “No, he doesn’t,” you agree. Part of you wants to correct him, to say that you and James aren’t really friends, but you don’t know how you would otherwise classify your relationship. Instead of trying to puzzle that out, you turn your focus to the latest instrument you have been handed. It’s a Fender dreadnought with a bright red finish, and you can’t help but appreciate the idea of Garen owning a set of beautiful red Fenders. Daryl rattles off the specs while you look it up your iPhone, to positive reviews. He claims to have recently seen another review online and leaves you alone for a moment to go print it out. You start to run through some of the songs you know Garen loves the most, just to see how they’ll sound when he plays. You try them unplugged, then with the amp; either way, the sound is beautiful. Less beautiful, however, is the interruption. “May I ask why a music store sells something that appears to be a small torture device?” James asks. Your head snaps up, and you have every intention of tearing him a new one, but the words won’t come. James is holding a silver banjo pick, brow furrowed as he examines it. You’ve seen one before, of course, but you never realized—well, you’d just never considered that, how it must look to someone who doesn’t know what it is. You swallow and try not to think about it, because you can’t think about it, not here, not with James running the pad of his thumb experimentally over the tip of the pick, not if you want to maintain any degree of sanity. “It’s a banjo pick,” you say, once you can speak without allowing your voice to break. Careful to avoid any contact with his skin, you reach out and slip the pick onto the top of his index finger, positioning it so that it curves upward. “You wear it like that, usually with a few more on your other fingers, so it’s easier to pluck the strings. I guess you could use it on an acoustic, but, um… it’s mostly for banjos.” Apparently unconcerned with any valid use for the object, James twists the pick around so that it’s facing the wrong way, curved down like a single silver claw. You can feel his eyes on your face, even though you can’t make yourself look away from the pick. “Seems like it might have other uses,” he says, quietly enough that you don’t think any of the clerks will hear him. “Doesn’t it?” You can imagine it perfectly; one pick on each of his fingers, ten metal points too dull to draw blood, but sharp enough to leave deeper lines down your back than his short nails can manage. You can imagine him wrapping that same silver-clawed hand around your cock, working you over carefully so that he doesn’t scrape against you, but still letting you feel that threat of pain, the promise that always keeps you on edge. He would drag it out, too—you know he would. You don’t know how long he would make you wait before he would let you get off, but you know down to your bones that he could get you to beg. “Do you want—” he starts to say, and you do want, whatever he’s offering, you want it more than anything, but before he can finish, Daryl returns, article in hand. “Here it is,” he says cheerfully. “I think you—” “This is the one,” you say, voice hoarse. You all but shove the guitar back into Daryl’s hands. “Th-this is, it’s, um… this is the guitar we’re going to go with.” Realizing what you’ve just said, you clear your throat. “The guitar he’s going to go with.” Daryl looks thrilled, but you aren’t surprised by that—the guitar you’ve selected is barely within the three-thousand dollar budget, and you doubt he would have been this helpful if he wasn’t planning on getting a commission check. “Are you sure?” James asks. You nod, and that’s the only motivation he needs to prompt Daryl to return the guitar to its case and bring it up to the front for purchase. You remain silent and at a distance for the duration of the exchange, terrified of what you might do if you let yourself step any closer. That feeling only intensifies when James places the set of four silver banjo picks on the glass top of the counter and says, “These, too.” “Are you kidding me?” you say for the second time today, but when you say it now, you know that you must sound desperate. “Problem, McCutcheon?” he says. You press your lips together, trying to keep yourself absolutely silent until you can formulate an intelligent response, but any chance of coherency is shot to hell when James turns to shoot you a wink over his shoulder. Not for the first time, you find yourself wishing he were less beautiful. The moment James has swiped his black Amex—and of course he has a black Amex, not a fucking normal credit card—and signed the receipt, you thank the clerks for their patience and assistance, pick up the case, and stride out of the store, leaving James to gather up his damn picks and hurry after you. He keeps smirking at you from the driver’s seat, and you are so distracted in trying to avoid his eyes that you don’t realize where he’s taking you until he pulls into his own building’s garage. You finally turn to him, but he must have been waiting for you to notice, because he cuts you off with, “I just want to stop off at my place so that I can put the guitar somewhere I know it’ll be safe until Garen’s birthday. Besides, I thought I might grab your book for you. You said you wanted it returned, didn’t you?” “Yeah. Not because I—it’s just, I’ve never actually seen it in a bookstore? I had to buy my copy online, which was sort of a pain in the ass. Besides, I put some—” “—notes in the margins, yes,” he finishes. “I read those, too.” You’ve got no idea how you feel about that. You hadn’t scribbled any of those notes down with the intention of letting someone else see them; you hadn’t thought anyone else would ever want to see them. James parks the car, cuts the engine and makes a brief, one-handed gesture towards the doors leading into the building. It’s a clear suggestion to follow, but you hesitate with your hand on the door handle. Every time you find yourself in this situation with James, there’s a moment where you remember that there is a line, and that you are about to cross it. It only ever lasts a few seconds, but each time, you feel as if you’re taking one last breath before slipping underwater. You felt it that first morning in November, when he told you to prove to him what you were capable of. You felt it that night outside the diner, when he all but begged to see the scratches down your back. You felt it in the bar on New Year’s Eve, when he used the crowd as an excuse to press himself against your back during the second band’s set. You felt it sometime after three this morning, when the two of you finally ran out of things to say about the books you’ve been exchanging, and he said that he should probably head home, though his eyes were fixed on your mouth, and he was sitting so close that you could feel the almost feel the vibration of his words as he spoke. You feel it right now, when he pauses at the door and turns to face you again, cocking his head to the side and asking, “Are you coming upstairs, or staying there?” You follow. You don’t know how you could do anything else, not when you’re the one who always has to make the first move. You crossed the living room and undressed him, you stripped off your shirt in the middle of a snowy parking lot, you dragged him through the crowd and into the alley behind the club, you leaned in and kissed him because you didn’t know how to say, don’t go just yet. Neither of you speaks during the elevator ride to his floor, though the silence is broken by the soft drumming of his fingertips against the hard shell of the guitar case. The elevator bell dings, and he leads you down the hall to his door. You’re still not entirely… comfortable in his apartment. You’ve spent the night here, and you know your way around, but you can’t help but think you don’t have the right to stand in a room that’s this perfect. “Will it be alright if I leave this in my guest room closet?” James asks, lifting the case. “I don’t want it to get damaged, but I’m sure Garen’ll be around here before his birthday, and he’s a nosy bastard. I can’t guarantee he won’t poke around in my bedroom.” Bedroom, bedroom, bedroom. It’s as if that’s the only word you’ve really heard, and you’d give anything to be able to smack yourself. You need to get it together, or you’re certain you’ll embarrass yourself completely by throwing yourself at him. You shove your hands into your pockets and hunch your shoulders in a shrug. “That should be fine. You should clear enough space on the floor that you can lay it down, though, just so you can be sure it won’t fall over.” “Alright. A moment, please.” He retreats down the hall with the guitar, while you close your eyes and try to breathe. You have done absolutely nothing to win James’ attention, but for whatever reason, you have it. You just have no idea what to do with it. No one has ever approached you as deliberately as James has been doing for these past few months. Even Travis just sort of threw himself at you, prompted by nothing but his own loneliness and desperation. Garen did the same thing, going from friend to not-boyfriend just because you were present and naked. And you care about the two of them, and you bear them no ill will for how badly things turned out, but would it have fucking killed either of them to ever actually take you out? The closest you’ve ever come to a date was the half hour you spent at prom before Alex’s drunkenness necessitated him being brought home, and now you’ve got James Goldwyn planning to take you out for a night in New York City, James Goldwyn reading all the notes you write in the margins of your favorite poems, James Goldwyn questioning you this morning about what it might be like if you were to find yourselves in an exclusive arrangement. You can’t even fathom that. You try to imagine coming to visit him here, spending the night in this apartment, letting him take you by the hand and lead you down one of the crowded Manhattan streets that are always full of people so much more beautiful than you. You try to picture him coming to New Haven for you, eating vegan tofu scramble for brunch with the rowdy group of pierced and tattooed art majors you’ve befriended at school, sleeping in your bed at the apartment while you wrack your brain for an explanation you can give Alex for how this all happened. You think about him meeting your parents and trying not to cringe as your sisters climb all over him, and you think about meeting his parents, who you know nothing about, but would be willing to bet are as refined and attractive as he is. It’s impossible; it just doesn’t fit. You made an idiot of yourself when you tried to date Travis, with his varsity letters and sunshine smile, and again when you tried to date Garen, with his cigarette-harshened voice and all his sharp edges. You don’t want to do this again with James; you are so fucking sick of feeling foolish. You don’t know who you think you are, that you might ever believe you’ve got a right to him. “Everything alright?” Your eyes snap open. James has returned with silent steps, and he’s standing only a few feet in front of you, guitar gone and book in hand. Even his frown is stunning. “Yeah. Everything is fine,” you say. If he senses that you are lying, he lets it go. Instead, he holds out the book and says, “Thank you again, for letting me borrow it.” He gestures towards the couch in his living room. “We could sit and talk about it, if you’d like to.” “Or we could wait and talk about it tomorrow, on our… outing,” you say hesitantly. “You know, so we know going into the night that we’ll have at least one topic of conversation.” Something that might be a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Certainly. We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Though…” He takes a step closer. “I read it this morning, as you know, so it’s lodged pretty firmly in the forefront of my mind. If you don’t want to talk about it now, will you at least humor me by letting me know which poem is your favorite?” He might as well have asked you to strip yourself bare for inspection. “‘Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out,’” you say. “It’s only maybe half a dozen poems in, but it’s, uh… it’s the one with the part about the dragon. It—my favorite used to be ‘A Primer for the Small Weird Loves,’ but… being friends with Garen sort of ruined that one for me.” James’ eyebrows shoot upward. “Oh? How so?” “‘The green-eyed boy in the powder-blue t-shirt standing next to you in the supermarket recoils as if hit, repeatedly, by a lot of men, as if he has a history of it,’” you quietly recite, and James’ eyes drop to the floor, almost as if you’d threatened to hit him, too. Again, you find yourself wondering how you always manage to turn conversations into something uncomfortable. In a poor attempt to salvage it, you ask, “What about you? Was there one you liked?” “I liked nearly all of them. But yes. The last one stood out to me,” he says. “I only read the book once, so I can’t quit remember the title—something about snow, was it?” “‘Snow and Dirty Rain,’” you answer, and your voice is maybe hoarser than you’d want it to be, because you’ve read every syllable of that book a hundred times by now, and that poem is still one of your favorites. He nods slowly. He is standing so close. “Like I said, I can’t remember all of it. But there was a bit about a love that transcends hunger. I liked that.” You press your lips together to keep yourself from delivering the quotation, but the words rattle inside your head. I’ll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? “And later, a few lines right in a row, talking about moonlight,” he says. I would like to meet you all in Heaven. But there’s a litany of dreams that happens somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands and record stores. Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one. There’s a rueful smile on James’ face now, and he admits, “My descriptions can’t be very helpful. I wish I could remember enough to quote it for real.” “It’s okay,” you say, “I know the parts you’re talking about.” “Of course you do,” he agrees, and you aren’t sure if he’s annoyed by it now, or if he appreciates it, the way you’ve saved so much space for all these poems in your head. If he’s annoyed, he hides it well by licking his lips just once—your eyes flicker down to follow the movement—and adding, “There’s another part, close to the end, that I really liked. The things about the gold room. That’s the part I remember.” Your attention shifts back from his mouth to his eyes. “Do you?” “I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everybody gets what they want,” he says. His words aren’t a verbatim quotation, but they’re so, so close, close enough to make your heart hurt. Your skin feels too hot. He keeps going. “You said, Tell me about your books, your visions made of flesh and light, and I said, This is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you.” He hitches a shoulder, like that’s all he remembers, and you can’t anymore, you just can’t, you have to at least try, even if you’re not sure you’re supposed to. “Let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube.” Your mouth is too dry, and you have to clear your throat to finish. “We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said—” “Kiss me,” he says. You don’t know if he’s finishing the line or simply asking, but either way, his eyes are dark and your mouth is still too dry, and when you pull him towards you by the lapels of his jacket, he comes easily. He’s so goddamn tall, you’d have to tilt your head straight back to get at him when he’s standing up properly. You press a hand to the nape of his neck, intending to draw him down to a more reasonable height, but he has come to a solution of his own; he grips you by the back of your thighs—closer to your ass, if you’re really being honest—and hikes you up against the apartment door. The movement is clumsier than it ever was when Garen did it, probably because Garen is built like a comic book character and can more easily support your weight. James needs to brace you against the door, and your legs are wound tight around him, heels digging into the back of his legs. When you kiss him, it’s not the kind of kiss you’d intended it to be. All of your interactions with James thus far have been desperate and half-violent, leaving you bruised and scratched and aching. Now, though, with one of your hands curved over the back of his neck and the other cupping his jaw, you’ve somehow managed to turn this into something slow, deep, and… intimate, maybe, if the two of you were any other two people on the planet. Kissing James is becoming dangerously familiar to you, but it’s still electric in a way that you wish it wasn’t. The same is true for him, you think, if the way he pulls back to rest his forehead against yours, breathing hard, is any indication. “You know, all day today, I really have been attempting to behave as a gentleman should,” he murmurs. You roll your eyes. “Yeah? You were being a gentleman when you were making riding jokes in the car and buying banjo picks to be used in kinky sex? Wow, I’d hate to see you when you think you’re being a cad.” “Allow me to clarify: I’ve been attempting to respect your torturous abstinence promise by keeping my hands to myself, even though what I want to do is bring you back to my bedroom and have you fuck me until I can’t walk straight.” “You’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” you say, pressing his face between your palms and meaning every word. When you drag him back into a kiss, he’s chuckling against your lips. So it goes for several minutes—you aren’t sure how many—before you can tell that this against-the-door position is starting to wear on him. He steps back a little, stops kissing you long enough to say, “Alright, we’ve got to—it doesn’t have to be my bed, it can be the couch, or the fucking floor, but we need to—oh.” He blinks down at where you have sunk straight down onto your knees in front of him. “That’s perhaps a bit more of an enthusiastic vote for ‘floor’ than I’d expected.” He moves as if to join you so that you might resume kissing, but you grab him by the hips and twist him around, shoving his body back against the door. “Don’t,” you say thickly. “That’s not what I—just stay there, I want you to stay right like that, I want to—” Rather than try to stammer out the words, I swallow and reach for his belt. He makes no move to stop you, but he does say, “You don’t have to. Yes, I remember your idiotic little offer of this morning, and I realize that you gave up getting off, not any and all sexual practices, but I told you: I can wait until it’s not just me.” “I want to,” you repeat, more urgently. “Please. I like it, I like doing it.” He lets his head fall back against the door with a thud. “It was much easier to tell you to fuck off back when I thought you were nothing but a grammar-obsessed music snob in tight jeans.” You pause halfway through the act of unzipping his pants. “I… am a grammar-obsessed music snob in tight jeans.” “I’m aware,” he replies, “but I never expected to find that so sexy.” Your face burns, but luckily, you have a suitable distraction four inches from your face; you slip your hand into his pants and wrap your fingers around the base of his cock. “Shut up.” “I’m serious. You don’t know how long I’ve been thinking of getting you on your knees like this,” he says, voice deep and quiet like a confession. He’s still got his head back against the door, but you think he might be watching you through eyelids at half-mast. “Enlighten me,” you say. It’s a self-indulgent, awful thing to ask, but that doesn’t make you want to know any less. “First time I saw you,” he says. Your head snaps up so suddenly that you feel a pinch in your neck. James doesn’t seem to notice your surprise; he’s too focused on what’s about to happen. He hooks his thumbs over the top of his pants and pushes them down enough to free his cock. “Don’t misunderstand me—I wanted to murder you and bury your corpse in the woods for having the gall to date Travis while Garen was away, and I thought you were hilariously short, and I didn’t really get the eyeliner—I still don’t know that I get the eyeliner. But god, your lips.” “What about them?” you ask. Your hand is working steadily over his cock, keeping James distracted. He’s staring openly at your hand, and he doesn’t seem inclined to answer you. To get his eyes back on your face, you duck forward and drag the flat of your tongue against the underside of his cock from base to tip, then let your lips linger on the head. When you pull back, he makes a frustrated noise and arches towards you, but you catch him by the hips and press him back to the door. “Answer. What about my lips?” He huffs out a breath. “You know. You know how gorgeous your mouth is, I shouldn’t have to tell you. That’s the only reason I agreed to let Garen have that stupid party the night after the wedding—I assumed he and Travis would be getting back together, and I was hoping you’d be bitter enough to give me a rebound blowjob in McCall’s bed. Now, please, will you—” Before he can finish, you lean forward to take him into your mouth, and you’re gratified to hear him let out a broken groan in response. It isn’t as if this is something you could forget how to do, but you think that perhaps James has forgotten what you like, because his hands have remained useless at his sides, flexing ever so faintly against his own hips. But he isn’t touching you, not the way you need him to. You give a few bobs of your head, taking him as deeply as you can before you pull off and try to confess, “I don’t—I can’t deepthroat, but you can still— I don’t mind if, um—” The words won’t come. You breathe deeply, take him by the wrists, and guide his hands into your hair. He drags his fingertips over your scalp, and it’s just enough to give you the determination to finish, “You can make me choke on it. That’s—I like that, I really like that. If you want to hold my head down, you can.” The first time you said that to Ethan, he blinked at you and told you that you were kind of creepy. The first time you said it to Garen, he said you could work up to that, but he didn’t want to hurt you, and he wouldn’t do it until he was sure you could handle it. James says neither of these things; he knots his hands up in your hair and says, “If it’s too much, grab me by the wrists, and I’ll let you go. Like we did in the car, with the necktie.” You couldn’t forget that night if you wanted to, and your mouth is suddenly too full for you to confess this, so you compromise by humming out a muffled moan against his cock. He curses under his breath and eases you off until only the head is in your mouth, then rocks forward. He repeats the motion over and over, holding you right where he wants you while he fucks your face, and it’s—perfect. It’s exactly what you’d been hoping for. One of your hands is still curled tight around the bit of him you can’t fit into your mouth, but the other is clawing frantically at his thigh through his pants. You don’t even know why, because you don’t know what you want, all you know is that you want more of him. None of the sounds he’s making are particularly coherent. He seems content to settle for a series of the most intense, throaty moans a human being could ever be capable of. One of his hands moves from the back of your head to the base of your neck, then circles around to press against your throat, an action that leaves you so undone that you shove a hand under his shirt to scratch at his hard, flat stomach. He sighs, then raises his hand just a little so that he can cup your jaw, rubbing his palm over your beard, tracing the corners of your mouth as he continues to shove his cock deeper and deeper into it. He’s muttering something above your head now, but you have no idea what, and you can’t bring yourself together enough to care. On the off chance he’s making a legitimate request for a variance in your technique, you lean quickly into the next thrust of his hips, even though it’s deep enough to choke you. His other hand, already wound so tightly into your dark hair, gives a tremble and a jerk, and it’s too much. The pain spikes over your scalp and down the back of your neck, down your spine, hits you like a truck. You are suddenly hovering right on the edge, your whole body tight and your skin too hot. You reel back to protest, but his fingers twist again, and all you can manage is a breathless, desperate, “J-James,” and then you’re gone, cock pulsing in your jeans as you try to stay upright. To stay conscious, really, because even drawing in a breath is becoming an issue now. You hadn’t thought that a month would be long enough to make you actually forget how good this feels, but you’re sure you’ve never experienced anything as intense as this. Part of you is actually worried you’re about to start sobbing for how good it is. You can’t think straight, you can’t even see. All you can do is press your face to James’ hip and dig the heel of your hand into your crotch for friction. Somewhere above you, James is speaking, but you can’t gather your thoughts enough to understand a word of it. And once you finally get yourself together, you’re struck by the reality of this situation. You just came in your pants. From getting your hair pulled. In the kitchen of someone who already mocks you for your pathetic inexperience, someone who only just this morning decided you might be worth dating. And it is becoming rapidly apparent that any chance you might have tricked him into giving you has just disappeared. “McCutcheon,” he says, most likely not for the first time. “Why did you stop? Did I—what, did I pull too hard? I’m sorry, I—” He stops speaking, and you just know he has figured it out. He’s not blind, and you’re not being subtle. Your face is still tucked against his side, but you’re trembling so badly that his needle-sharp hipbone is stuttering against your forehead like a tattoo gun. You’re still grinding helplessly against your own wrist, you can’t stop yourself. There’s a slowly spreading damp patch at the front of your jeans. And yes, when you remain silent, James breathes, “Did you come?” You whimper. And, because you are nothing if not a masochist, you allow yourself to recall all of the most embarrassing experiences of your life thus far. When your seventh grade band teacher, in a moment of frustration, asked Will Bernard why he couldn’t keep tempo like you could, and Will snapped, “Because while Ben was busy learning how to play ten different instruments, I was busy learning how to have friends.” He had to sit through two days of detention, but that didn’t really help you, because for the first time in your life, you actually noticed that you didn’t have any friends, that you spent every single lunch sitting alone with a book, that you had never once been invited over anyone’s house, that not a single person in your school liked you. When your freshman geometry teacher found out that everyone in your grade called you B-B-Ben McC-C-Cutcheon and requested that the guidance office pull you out of study hall for speech therapy, and you tried to explain that you didn’t have a speech impediment, you just got nervous about speaking in front of groups of people you didn’t know well, but you tripped over all your words and only managed to stutter out, “I-It’s not a problem, really. I can’t, I don’t, I’m n-n-not—” The guidance counselor and the special education instructor had both stared pityingly at you while you tried desperately to get a coherent sentence out, becoming more nervous, more frustrated, more clumsy with every syllable, until you started to cry. They had to call your parents, and you ended up sitting in the office for an hour, gnawing on your lip and refusing to say a single word, tears still streaming down your face, until your mom arrived and tried to explain that you didn’t really have a stutter, you were just shy. It didn’t matter; the school still made you sit through two months of speech therapy, until you were so detached from the whole situation that you could raise your hand in class and grit out every answer in perfect monotone. When you took your clothes off in front of another boy for the first time in your life, and the first thing Ethan said was, “What the hell is wrong with your dick?” You did a double-take, because your dick looked the same as it always did, but then you realized what he was talking about, and you said, “Oh. I’m uh, I-I’m uncircumcised,” as if that wasn’t blatantly obvious at that point. But Ethan didn’t look reassured, and the one time your dick actually brushed against him while you were riding him, he recoiled in poorly-concealed disgust. When you tripped and nearly fell on your face on your way across the stage to give your valedictorian speech, and the first thing you could think to say when you got to the microphone was, “Highest GPA in the school, and I still can’t remember how to work my legs properly. Doesn’t really inspire much confidence in the rest of you, does it?” No one laughed, because what kind of person would laugh at the geek who thought it was clever to mock his entire graduating class in the first breath of his graduation speech? Each and every one of those experiences pales in comparison to the humiliation that’s making your skin crawl at this very moment. For the first time in your life, you truly wish that you could die. “I-I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m—fuck, I didn’t m-mean—I’m, I can—” You’re flat on your back before you even realize you’ve moved. Or, been moved, as it were, because you’re only in this position because James has all but thrown himself onto you, pinning you to the ground as his mouth drags over your throat. “Fucking hell, McCutcheon,” he mumbles. “I know it’s been a while, but I never thought you’d—” “Please,” you manage to say hoarsely, even though you’re still so stunned, so humiliated, so utterly spent and useless that you can barely get a word out. “Please, do not make fun of me right now. I’m already so fucking—” “--hot,” he breathes, “I couldn’t even tell you the last time I was with someone who was so turned on by blowing me, they got off before I could even get a hand on them.” The last time you made a grammar correction during sex, Garen threatened to bring you to the zoo and feed you to the ocelots, but your brain is still fuzzy from climax, and the only thing you can think to say is, “Shouldn’t use ‘they’ and ‘their’ with a singular antecedent like ‘someone.’” “The Chicago Manual of Style has a neutral stance on the use of singular they to express the actions of a subject of unspecified gender,” he argues. Really, argues, even as he’s trying to suck a bruise into the place where your neck and shoulder join. It is possibly the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to you. You let out a noise that’s somewhere between a whimper and a groan, and James curses, bites down hard enough to make you arch off the floor, then lunges up to kiss you again. One of his hands works its way between your bodies and yanks open the button fly of your jeans. The front of your boxers is practically soaked through with cum; James’ hand presses right into the mess of it, slim fingers brushing over your sticky, softening cock. You’re still painfully sensitive, still almost buzzing with sensation, but it’s been so long since you’ve been touched this way. Instead of pulling away, you find yourself pushing into the touch with a sound you’d be ashamed to call a whine under other circumstances. The sound breaks when he moves his hand, still slick with your cum, to his own cock so that he can stroke himself. You finally summon enough coordination to shove his hand out of the way so that you can touch him instead, muttering a mostly slurred, “No, let me, I want to.” His hands end up on your jaw, angling your face so that your mouths can align properly, though the kiss itself has too much tongue, too much accidental clacking of teeth, too many hitches of breath. He’s straddling your waist and hunching over you, but the position is too awkward for him; he moves to brace one hand on the ground and tangle the other in your hair once more. It doesn’t take more than a dozen strokes before he’s coming, rutting against the few inches of skin between the waistband of your jeans and the pushed-up hem of your hoodie. The noises he’s making are so loud, you wouldn’t be surprised if one of his neighbors came knocking on the door that’s only a foot or so to your side. You do your best to silence them with your lips, but it’s a lost cause, especially since you think you might still be making some noise yourself. Eventually, James tips sideways off of you, sprawling out on the floor beside you. It’s a very long while before either of you is able to catch your breath. “You alright there?” he asks finally. You let your head loll to the side so that you can face him, and sigh, “You’re an asshole. You rubbed a handful of my own cum into my hair. And all over my face.” “I know, you look absolutely disgusting. It’s in your beard. You look like a public service announcement about the horrors of truck stop prostitution. And I’m not sure if you missed this, but I also shot a load all over your sweatshirt.” You lift your head to look down at your hoodie. Sure enough, there are bright white smears of bodily fluids all down the front of it. Having expended what remains of your energy, you let your head flop back down into its previous position. “You’re the worst person I know. And you’re letting me use your shower before you bring me back to the house. Garen will never let me live it down if I come back with jizz in my hair.” “A shower won’t help you. We both know I’m going to tell him about it the next time I talk to him anyway,” he says. Then, abruptly, “This is the first time you’ve looked me in the eye after sex. Usually, you avoid any sort of acknowledgment and… well, flee, if we’re being honest.” “I don’t flee,” you lie. “I just… I mean, what would you prefer to have me do? Hang out and snuggle?” “I might. You don’t know. Perhaps I like to snuggle,” he says, narrowing his eyes at you. You narrow yours right back, and before he can get another snide word out, you wriggle close enough to curl into his side, slinging an arm across his torso and resting your cheek on one of his pecs. Which is hard as a rock, good God. He immediately brings his arm up to curve over your shoulders, drawing you tighter against him. You can hear his heart beating in his chest, feel the warmth of his skin through the thin Oxford cloth of his shirt. For a very long moment, neither of you moves. “This is exactly as awkward as I think we both knew it would be,” he finally says, at the same time that you pull back with a grimace and say, “Yeah, I’m going to go shower.” Your legs are embarrassingly unsteady as you stand, but James seems to be too busy stretching like a sleepy cat to notice the way you stumble a little on your way down the hall to the bathroom. You leave the door open a few inches while you shower. A small part of you assumes—but certainly doesn’t dare hope—that James will slink in after you and join you, but he only enters long enough to place a folded stack of clothes on the counter. Once you’ve scrubbed off the evidence of what has transpired, you dress in the plain white t-shirt and gray drawstring sweatshorts you’ve been provided with. You feel completely exposed, with your scarred arms bared like this, but you barely have time to be uncomfortable; the moment you step out of the bathroom, James hands you a well-worn gray hoodie. “I’ll take your clothes,” he says. “I’m doing laundry tonight anyway, so I might as well toss yours in with it. You can have them back when I pick you up tomorrow.” You nod your thanks as you shrug into the hoodie. James takes a long, steady look at you, then hitches his chin. “You look good in that.” “Thank… you?” you say slowly. It’s just an old sweatshirt, and the sleeves hang far past your hands. You blink down at it, trying to figure out exactly what it is about it that looks so good. There are words printed in navy across the chest, but you have to wriggle around a little so that you can read them; Patton Military Academy Varsity Lacrosse Team. Easier to twist to read are the words printed on each bicep—his name, his old jersey number, his captain status. You roll your eyes. “What, seriously? You had to give me what I’m willing to bet is the only article of clothing you own that’s got your name on it?” “Shut up,” he says, not lifting his eyes from his name on your arm. “You shut up, you’re the one who’s getting off on the sight of me wearing your varsity sweater, like this is a Sweet Valley High novel. What’s next, Goldwyn? Are you going to ask me to wear your class ring? Do you want to pin me?” He does—he pushes you right up against the hallway wall, pinning you in place with the weight of his body. “My class ring wouldn’t fit you,” he says, pausing to duck down so that he can press a kiss to your jawline. “You’d have to wear it as a goddamn bracelet. Your fingers are too small.” Your hands glide down his back, lingering over his ass. “They get the job done.” You can feel him smirking against your jaw, then against your cheek, and finally against your lips. You nudge him backward and say, “Are you going to shower before you take me back?” “No. No one’s going to see me, and I’m only planning to come back here, once I’ve dropped you off. Besides, I believe you caught the brunt of the mess,” he says. He’s mostly correct, though his clothes are disheveled enough that anyone could guess what he’s been doing. You can’t help but admire the view as he leads the way out of the apartment and into the elevator. The ride back to Travis and Garen’s house passes much like the ride to the music store; James and you make periodic comments to one another, but mostly, you take the ride in silence, radio playing in the background. He parks at the curb, and you’re about to thank him for the ride when he catches you by the jaw and pulls you into a kiss. For something so unexpected, it’s almost… chaste. Or, it’s chaste by James Goldwyn’s standards. When he releases you, he gives you a warning look, like he expects you to make a smart remark. “I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow night, for our—” “—outing. Yeah, I—” “—date,” he finishes, rather decisively. You blink. He scowls. You contemplate telling him that you haven’t done this before—the date thing, that is—but it seems like it’s exactly the sort of thing you might scare him by admitting. So instead, you nod, offer him a timid smile, and let yourself out of the car and into the house with the spare key Garen gave you months ago. It isn’t until nearly an hour later that you realize you left your book on the floor of James’ apartment. It doesn’t matter, though; you’ll see him tomorrow. You can get it then.